Still the Days Seem the Same
by serpensortia863
Summary: Aziraphale is summoned away on angelic business, leaving Crowley alone in London for Christmas. Neither is sure that they are where they're supposed to be.


**Author's Notes:** Many thanks and cuddles go to my beta, Musegaarid, without whom I would be forever lost. This was originally written for seularen for the Good Omens 2007 holiday exchange.

--

_First there is song._

_Before Eve, before Adam, before light, before earth and sea and sky, there is song, and this song is like no music ever heard outside of Heaven. It is the song of Creation._

_Had they solid forms to do so, the angels would have sung with all their breath the sacred words: the glorias, the hallelujahs, and a myriad of other words which lose their meaning beyond the celestial sphere. They would have tired their voices with the effort._

_As it is, their praise came in the form of energy different than sound waves, deeper, a song originating in the very core of their beings, with the steadiness of a thousand hearts beating in time and the emotion of power. And in their exultation, there is change. The fabric of their celestial kingdom bends and shifts, until there is a new domain, separate from Heaven, beautiful in its vivid tapestry of colors._

_It is Earth, and it sends joyous reverberations through the angelic choir._

--

"This," said Gabriel, "is why you don't get to plan the staff meetings."

Raphael grinned, a winsome and yet somehow completely unrepentant expression. "Why, whatever do you mean, Gabriel? This is positively the best attendance we've had in _centuries_."

"But no one is accomplishing anything." The Messenger's sober business attire contrasted starkly with the Healer's beach-ready shorts and snug t-shirt. They were both sporting sunglasses, but only Raphael had seen fit to tuck a bright pink blossom behind one ear. "Did you even remember to invite the Virtues? I haven't seen a single one of them."

"Well, of course I did. I believe they've, ah, gone off for a bit of joyous contemplation of nature in this lush tropical setting."

Gabriel looked at the other angel, one eyebrow raised. "They've what?"

"They're, er. Having a party on the beach."

"Ah."

"But I'm sure it'll be right down to business in the morning."

"In the morning?"

"Well, Haniel's booked us a dinner cruise at seven. I thought it would be rude to refuse the invitation," Raphael explained, almost managing to look sincere.

The other archangel didn't seem to be buying a second of it.

"Come now, Gabriel. Did not our Lord create these Hawaiian Islands in all their beauty?"

"And your mai tai, as well?"

"All a part of the ineffable experience, of course."

Gabriel sighed.

"... So he rings me up at some hellish time in the morning to tell me he's off to some bloody angelic - angelic _conclave_," Crowley was saying, gesturing with his drink as he tried to find the word that held the proper amount of contempt. "In fucking Hawaii, if you can imagine."

Adam could, in fact, imagine - so much so that it was almost as though he could see the celestial gathering as it took place half a world away from this exclusive little restaurant in London. But then, there was very little beyond the scope of Adam's imagination. He merely nodded in response, and sipped at his tea. Crowley didn't actually seem to be looking for actual speech in response.

He had not, in fact, been surprised when Crowley'd rung him up for lunch, nor when the demon had suggested one of the most pretentious-sounding places in London - perhaps in the northern hemisphere.

It wasn't exactly Adam's sort of place; everyone was dressed as though they'd just left some kind of Armani Anonymous meeting, and no one was smiling. Give him a lager at a friendly corner pub any day.

But he liked Crowley, and he didn't really mind the ranting. It seemed to go unnoticed among business luncheons and loud mobile phone conversations, anyway.

"And he had the nerve to ask me if I'd do something to counteract the Manchester United game on Saturday. Nothing in particular, just 'be a dear and do see if you could do something nice that day, won't you?'" The demon's impression of Aziraphale's inflections and kind tone were rather uncanny, but then, being in business together for thousands of years was bound to do that. "As if I'm to _look_ for something to do for him. Put on a car boot sale for the local parish or hug an orphan or something. I mean, I didn't hear _him_ offering to tie up traffic in bloody Waikiki for a couple of hours…"

Adam nodded empathetically. Crowley seemed somewhat pacified; he made a few comments about angels being real bastards, but after that seemed to take some interest in the table next to them, where a man who'd called his wife to explain that he had to work late seemed to be having trouble with his signal dropping at the most inconvenient times.

"Crowley," Adam said, without quite thinking through the reply; the use of demonic power in such close quarters tugged at him oddly, a wrenching in his gut that was both beauty and pain.

"What?" There was a sudden, instant cessation as the demon looked back at him, one brow arched curiously. He'd never told Crowley over the years what the demon's casual use of power did to him: what shadows he heard whispering in his ears.

"Nothin'. Just... it'd be real borin', don't you think?" the young man said quickly. "Angels sittin' around polishin' their halos, talkin' 'bout all the good things that have happened this year."

Crowley nodded; his own words seemed somehow shallow to the Antichrist, but when Adam spoke, people had a tendency to listen closely. He knew it was what Crowley had been telling himself all along.

"Doesn't sound much like you," he added.

"No," Crowley said vaguely after a drawn out silence. "Not much like me at all."

Suddenly, like a flurry of snow clearing from an upset snow globe, Adam understood.

_All in Heaven know the moment that the Morningstar's song has changed._

_It elicits silence in some, while others sing on stronger, determined to drown out the discord of Lucifer's dissident music. But his song does not change: the damage has been done, and he has sung his rebellion. Words of betrayal spill forth, indignity that Man should be above the angels who had come long before, anger that they should be set aside so easily._

_Michael is the first to confront the Morningstar. Later it would be painted in flashes of harsh steel, but Michael would not acquire his skill with a blade until the Garden. When first the two archangels clash, it is pure energy, a battle of wills like none among the Host have ever seen. There has been no disagreement here before._

_Had the other angels breath, they would hold it, but for a moment that stretches into an eternity, there are no other voices but Michael's and the Morningstar's. The others simply look on, shocked that one of their own could speak out so, afraid that this change is nothing but an ill portent. Is the fabric of their world to be rendered in Destruction so soon after Creation has begun?_

It's like they always say: No angel is an island.

Or perhaps that wasn't exactly how the saying went, but Aziraphale was feeling oddly isolated for one who was spending some of the dreariest bits of the London winter on a tropical isle piled with tourists - mortal and immortal alike.

It just didn't seem _right_ when Crowley was half a world away. For one thing, the Christmas season was (understandably) the demon's least favorite, and he tended to take out his own frustration with the season in terms of terrible traffic, inflated prices, horrendous queues, and scuffles in the aisles of toy stores.

For another thing… well. He rather missed the demon.

The angel adjusted his big, floppy sun hat to be sure it kept the sun from his nose. It was odd, but since he'd arrived, he'd been nagged by something, some restless recollection just waiting for him to remember. Something about Crowley? No matter how he tried to pin it down, he wasn't sure...

"Aziraphale! Nice hat."

"Oh. Thank you, Raphael."

"Listen, some of us are signed up for surfing lessons later, if you'd like to tag along."

"Oh, er, I'm not sure surfing is quite my... particular cup of tea."

"No? Fair enough. You can always go along to the conference room and help Gabriel Xerox agendas for the meeting later, if you like."

Aziraphale colored somewhat. "There's a meeting later?" He hadn't been able to keep things straight the past day or so; he was somewhat rusty when it came to interacting with his fellow angels, particularly with so much power concentrated in one place. It had been quite some time since he'd personally checked in...

"Well," Raphael said with a wink, "Gabriel seems to think there is. Delay him another day or two, though, and we'll all be having Christmas in the tropics. You're quite lucky, you know, stationed down here all the time."

"Oh... yes. Lucky."

It wasn't anything so simple as needing a friend, or resenting his co-worker's time spent in other matters. If Adam could put a name to what he saw so plainly now in the demon's demeanor, it would be bitterness; but the word was too shallow. It could not hold the depths of fear and resentment and anger that had built up over the past six thousand years of simply not knowing.

Aziraphale had gone, had access to something that Crowley had lost; and after all this time, the demon still did not know why.

"Crowley…" The name came out faintly, somewhat awed, and then Adam was scrambling desperately, trying to close himself off from the part of his mind that could just _know_ something so intimate about someone else without that person willingly sharing.

But the images were there: Crowley with gray eyes and a soft smile, looking somehow younger in a time before Time. And the feelings, too, clenched in Adam's chest, confusion, loss, betrayal, all forming iron bands around his heart until it ached. And Crowley sat across from him, watching him wordlessly, oblivious to the way his ancient memories overflowed; a very different creature now than the one the Antichrist saw in his mind, and yet not so much had changed.

He wondered if Crowley purposefully chose a human corporation so like his former self, or if it was purely some accident.

He wondered if the demon purposely sought comfort from his conversations with Aziraphale, or if it was something he'd stumbled across accidentally after centuries of trying to corrupt his adversary: the stoic reassurance of the angel's gentle faith, which had proved unshakable to the Serpent of Eden. Crowley was not fond of the philosophy of ineffability when it somehow implicated him, put the blame on him for that Fall which Adam now saw through Crowley's eyes, but the demon had ascribed to it once, wholeheartedly, and perhaps it helped to find one of the angelic brethren who espoused it but could still see fit to accept one who had been cast out.

Adam wondered if Crowley asked these questions of himself, or if he was afraid to.

He looked down quickly – he'd known all of these things in mere fractions of a second, the knowledge crackling and dangerous like electricity on the air – taking a sudden fierce interest in the salt shaker. But when he did finally tame his instincts and look up again, Crowley was staring at him intently.

"You saw," the demon said, his voice surprisingly neutral. Adam knew Crowley was meeting his eyes through his characteristic dark lenses.

"Yes," he admitted, feeling somewhat sheepish about the whole incident now. The Antichrist had learned to control his own emotions, but not the effects another's could elicit if it was strong enough.

Crowley nodded slowly.

_One angel watches as the others begin to take sides._

_Some are behind Michael: Gabriel, stern even before the centuries set in; Raphael, with his soothing voice; Uriel, a being who even then seemed a blinding light to this angel's eyes._

_Others begin to echo the Morningstar's grave accusations, wondering why things should change, why the angels should be subservient to this new creation, to the less capable Man._

_Suddenly, the Morningstar is blazing._

_It is like a dying star, though the lonely angel has not yet the words for this frame of reference: at once, the aura of the Morningstar grows, delicate rays in every direction, reaching out to all corners until suddenly, it goes dim._

_Lucifer has Fallen from their ranks._

_And then there are others, lights sparking and then going out; stars raining down from Heaven one by one. Their voices rage in a storm around the angel. Some call to him, pleading with him to stand by them, whichever side they have chosen. It is a horrid cacophony for one who had never questioned what is._

--

Gabriel had indeed finished his photocopying by the time Aziraphale found him, and had moved on to making notes on the back of the original. The others sat in a neat pile, still warm, by the archangel's elbow, ready for a group that Aziraphale happened to know were currently a way down the beach, spending more time splashing in the waves than on their surfboards.

"Hello, Aziraphale," he said, without looking up as the principality entered.

"Gabriel." Aziraphale nodded politely, taking a seat a few chairs down from Gabriel's. "Am I... er, late?" He felt a bit silly asking, as none of the other chairs in the conference room were occupied.

The archangel shook his head. "Early, by the looks of it. No luaus for you this evening, Aziraphale?" Thinking it more prudent than mentioning that he didn't quite feel he fit in with the other angels, Aziraphale began to say that he thought he'd see if Gabriel needed any help setting things up. The archangel shook his head, however, and looked up with an ironic smile. "It's no matter, really," he said. "Raphael can't stall forever." Something in his tone suggested that their rivalry in the matter was more of a game than anything else; that the two archangels had come to some sort of Arrangement of their own. Perhaps the decision to bring all the angels together somewhere nice had not been so one-sided after all.

"Still, it's... nice, having everyone here. Isn't it?" Aziraphale winced; the statement sounded more like he was seeking reassurance than expressing any real enthusiasm for the prospect.

If the angel's arched brow was any indication, he'd noticed the slip, but he said nothing about it. "It's good to be able to catch up," he said, adding neutrally, "though it's quite different, this plane, isn't it?"

"Quite different," Aziraphale echoed.

"Aziraphale?" The principality looked up. "Do you think we've forgotten about you?"

"Oh, no! No, of course not. I mean... Well. It's ineffable, isn't it? Me being here."

"We aren't always meant to know why things happen the way they do," Gabriel said. "But there is always a reason." His words held further weight that was somehow reassuring; but it didn't change the fact that Aziraphale had felt more at home during his last philosophical discussion with Crowley than he did at that moment. He'd become comfortable on this plane - too comfortable, he worried sometimes. Too comfortable with a being he was no longer supposed to relate to.

"I wasn't tryin' to," Adam was saying quietly, elsewhere; mostly because he hadn't meant to lose his grip on his powers, but also in some part because there was an age in the being that sat across from him that still made the young man feel as though he was required to justify himself.

He paused a beat, feeling the demon's gaze slip away before he added, "But for what it's worth, I think your place is here."

Crowley's head jerked up sharply.

"I mean, you and Aziraphale. Neither of you fits in where you should, 'xactly. I think you're meant to be on Earth."

--  
_  
'What is happening to them? Our numbers do not simply vanish.'_

_The angel has no concept of death, and cannot even fathom that angels can cease to be. Though the answer comes to his mind from elsewhere, he knows it to be Truth._

They are elsewhere now, in a place Lucifer has created with his discord.  
_  
'They are gone?'_

They are changed. They no longer belong in the celestial sphere.  
_  
The angel aches for those he has seen leaving. 'Are they forever to suffer for simple questions? They are part of the Choir, and we are one.'_

One no longer, yet you support them. Do you take to heart that which Lucifer has said?  
_  
'I will not turn against them.'_

Then your brethren they remain.  
_  
'But I haven't...'_

Your place is elsewhere...

Aziraphale had been back in London for a week or so before the Bentley appeared in front of his shop, parking along the curb where double yellow lines feared to stay.

"Lunch?" Crowley said unceremoniously as he entered the bookshop. Despite the implied punctuation, it was hardly a question.

"Oh, all right. Just give me a moment, my dear..."

It was a familiar ritual, one that had not changed in decades, and soon they were seated in a quiet corner of the Ritz, wine flowing long before their entrees had arrived.

Crowley had yet to ask about Aziraphale's absence, and really, the angel did not expect him to; he was actually rather surprised when the demon grinned lopsidedly, saying, "So. Anyone ask you what all those charges at the Ritz were about?" It was rather part of the unspoken Arrangement that Crowley never paid for anything if he could help it - and he could always help it.

The angel made a noncommittal noise over his drink. "I prefer to think of them as business lunches, really."

"Mmhmm."

"What is it, my dear?"

"You lied to them."

"I certainly didn't. And we do talk about business."

"No. _I_ talk about business. You just sit there saying everything's - "

"Ineffable," Aziraphale said quietly, reminded of his cryptic conversation with Gabriel. He very much doubted that Crowley would ever accept that as the reason for their current circumstance, but...

"Yes, yes, I know. Ineffable. It cannot be effed," Crowley drawled, a dramatic, sweeping gesture emphasizing his sarcasm.

"Well... yes. Quite."

"Quite." It was quiet, and for a moment, Aziraphale thought Crowley was going to ask him something else about the meeting. But when the demon spoke again, it was only to say, "You'll have to pick up the check today."

"Forgotten your wallet again, my dear?"

"No."

Crowley grinned; Aziraphale sighed. But honestly, the angel knew he wouldn't have changed a thing.


End file.
